New Feature: TalkShoe Creates iPhone App

February 27, 2008 at 8:39 am | Author: Scott | In Announcements, What's New

Highlights • Join live calls and view upcoming calls • One click auto dial-in enables iPhone users to participate in calls • Up to 250 people can join and talk all together at once • Hosts can create public or unlisted community calls • Hosts can easily manage calls through their iPhone • TalkShoe members can follow specific calls or be notified via email/SMS when they start • Easily record calls for later listening • Podcast right from your phone • Anyone can also participate via iPhone, phone, mobile phone, Skype, or VoIP via www.talkshoe.com Screenshots

Additional Notes • Features were built using TalkShoe’s publicly available API’s at Carnegie Mellon University • New features showcase the flexibility of TalkShoe’s web platform in working with open API’s Read the full press release here Reading this from your iPhone? Launch optimized site here

NEWS: TalkShoe creates iPhone App

February 25, 2008 at 11:48 am | Author: Aaron | In Announcements, Press Releases, What's New

TALKSHOE LAUNCHES IPHONE APPLICATION GIVING USERS INSTANT ABILITY TO TALK AND LISTEN INTO LIVE COMMUNITY CALLS

Discuss sports, politics, technology and more directly from your iPhone at iphone.talkshoe.com

Pittsburgh, PA – February 25, 2008 –TalkShoe, the community call leader, today unveiled an iPhone application that allows mobile users to participate on a call with just their iPhone. The iPhone web application was designed specifically for the iPhone and displays all live TalkShoe community calls, which allow people to join calls of interest with one click.

Visit iphone.talkshoe.com to join a community call now.

Community calls are being hosted constantly and bring together people to discuss topics such as sports, the latest in Mac innovations, pop culture, home winemaking, tips on financial matters, politics, religion, automotive trends and more. Now iPhone users can simply go to iphone.talkshoe.com, view the live and upcoming shows and join the call.

iPhone users do not need to register to participate in community calls, however registered TalkShoe users can now use their iPhone to conduct or manage their own community call episodes.

TalkShoe’s CEO, Dave Nelsen and Aaron Brauser, VP of product management along with special guests Victor Cajiao, host of the Typical Mac User and Adam Christianson, host of the Maccast Loop, will hold a community call tonight at 8 p.m. to showcase the new features. To participate, go to http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/1631

Cajiao and Christianson hosted the first iPhone-only beta community call on TalkShoe on Jan. 19 while driving back from the MacWorld show. This community call can be listened to here: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/17436

News Highlights:
• iPhone users can join live calls and view upcoming calls they may want to participate in
• The iPhone application provides a one click link to auto dial-in and participate in a call. Up to 250 people can join and talk all together at once
• Hosts can create public or unlisted community call episodes and manage them through their iPhone
• TalkShoe members can follow specific calls, which can then be viewed from their iPhone or be notified via email or SMS when they start
• Features were built using TalkShoe’s publicly available API’s at Carnegie Mellon University
• New features showcase the flexibility of TalkShoe’s web platform in working with open API’s
• Calls can be recorded for later listening or turned into a podcast
• The iPhone application makes it very easy to record a podcast right from your phone
• In addition to participating through iPhone, anyone can also participate via phone, mobile phone, Skype, or VoIP via the talkshoe.com website

MultiMedia:

Screenshot of new TalkShoe-iPhone

Quotes

Attributed to Dave Nelsen, President and CEO, TalkShoe
“The new features for iPhone offer an extension to the current capabilities offered by TalkShoe and make it easy for people to communicate and listen to community calls from anywhere. Now it is easy to view and participate in upcoming shows through your iPhone and have a party line with fellow iPhone, cell phone and Internet users on the topics you are passionate about.”

Attributed to Aaron Brauser, VP of Product Development, TalkShoe
“The TalkShoe iPhone application is TalkShoe’s first step for delivering the full mobile TalkShoe solution to iPhone users. We look forward to continuing iPhone development and are very excited about taking advantage of Apple’s iPhone SDK to fully integrate into all aspects of the iPhone.”

Attributed to Victor Cajiao, Producer/Host of Typical Mac User Community Call:
“Using my iPhone with the new TalkShoe Web client was already possible, but now with the TalkShoe iPhone application I’ll be able to easily start, manage and execute a community call wherever I am. Matched with the ability of the iPhone to initiate a call and then be allowed to browse the internet while you’re talking, the TalkShoe iPhone application will provide me with yet another way to engage my audience wherever I am. My show is about the Mac community and TalkShoe is helping me reach out to that community in new ways all the time. Keep it up TalkShoe.”

About TalkShoe
TalkShoe community calling integrates the power of group voice into your online networks to establish a deeper connection. Community calling uses the phone, cell phone or VoIP to enable group conversations between anyone, anywhere, anytime, allowing people to host and record interactive community calls on any topic. TalkShoe community calling integrates seamlessly with your already established social networks including Facebook, Meebo, and Ning. To learn more about how TalkShoe uses the power of peoples’ voices to establish deeper and more meaningful relationships with your communities visit us at www.talkshoe.com or +1 724-935-TALK (8255).

NEWS: The New TalkShoe - the Voice of Social Media

February 5, 2008 at 12:49 pm | Author: TalkShoe Team | In Announcements, Press Releases, What's New

NEW TALKSHOE COMMUNITY CALLING BRINGS THE
POWER OF VOICE TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Web-Based Version of TalkShoe Enables Users to Host or Participate in a Community Call for Up to 250 People: No Registration or Download Required

Pittsburgh, PA – February 4, 2008 –TalkShoe, the community call leader, today announced the latest version of the company’s community call service, integrating the power of voice into online social networks. Group voice allows people to establish deeper connections with their online networks. The latest version of TalkShoe now enables members and non-members to join a call with one click of a button, eliminating the need for site registration or software download. Community call hosts and participants can now integrate their TalkShoe calls directly into their established social networks including Facebook, Ning, MySpace and Meebo.

News Highlights:
• A new web client means no download and no registration required, just click and participate in a community call
• Facebook,MySpace, Meebo and blog integration, complete with easy to install widgets, makes TalkShoe as the voice of social media
• Multiple forms of access via phone, mobile phone, Skype, or VoIP
• Full host control with voice muting and text-chat censoring
• Optional recording and podcasting of a call
• TalkShoe Live Classic still available with advanced host features such as one-click ShoePhone ™, text-chat threading, chat sorting, see-who’s-talking, etc.

Attributed to Dave Nelsen, president and CEO, TalkShoe
“Internet users have a need to communicate more deeply with their online communities. The power of voice can bridge the gaps in traditional social networking and the new TalkShoe service leverages this fact by granting instant access to community calls to anyone, anywhere, anytime.”

Attributed to Cliff Ravenscraft, Professional Podcaster and Community Call user
“The new TalkShoe breaks down the barriers that at one time prevented many listeners from participating in my live shows because they didn’t want to go through the hassle of registering yet another user name and password on yet another website and then download another software package. Now, potential listeners can simply click on a link from my TalkShoe page and immediately join a community call. I have already noticed considerably more responses to my show invitations and I’m thrilled with this new opportunity to build even greater relationships with my social community.”

About TalkShoe
TalkShoe community calling integrates the power of group voice into your online networks to establish a deeper connection. Community calling uses the phone, cell phone or VoIP to enable group conversations between anyone, anywhere, anytime, allowing people to host and record interactive community calls on any topic. TalkShoe community calling integrates seamlessly with your already established social networks including Facebook, Meebo, and Ning. To learn more about how TalkShoe uses the power of peoples’ voices to establish deeper and more meaningful relationships with your communities visit us at www.talkshoe.com or +1 724-935-TALK (8255).

For more information contact:
Jessica Devaney
781-356-7173
jdevaney@horngroup.com

Status on all Past Recordings

February 4, 2008 at 5:03 pm | Author: Aaron | In Announcements, What's New

All past recordings have been fully restored and are now available for download. TalkShoe did experience a system failure that limited the delivery of some MP3 files over the past weeks. These issues have been fully fixed and all recordings should now be able to be accessed. We apologize for any inconvenience and please let us know if there are any more issues (email -support@talkshoe.com).

Additionally, we have implemented a new delivery system to not only prevent this in the future but make the recovery process seamless to limit any impact on delivering MP3s. Read Bob Pawlowski’s previous blog post for more information about the improvements.

New Recordings Service

February 1, 2008 at 5:15 pm | Author: Bob Pawlowski | In Announcements, Support, What's New

Recently we experienced a system failure that affected the processing and delivery of our MP3 files. All content from July 25th until the present has been restored. We are starting to process the older recordings today and they should be completely restored soon. The failure has prompted us to implement improvements in the way we process, deliver, and backup recordings. Here is what we are in the process of doing:

1. We are moving all of the recordings to an eternal direct attached storage (DAS) unit. This unit has built in fault tolerance, is designed for heavy read/write access, and can be attached to any computer on our system. If the computer hosting the DAS unit fails, we can move it to another computer within minutes.
2. While we do backup all recorded content in triplicate, we’ve discovered that our restoration process is very slow. We are in the process of implementing a new backup procedure. One of the three copies will be copied to a “hot” back up unit. If the original unit fails for any reason and cannot be restored, we can move the hot backup unit into production within an hour.
3. We are changing the way we process our recorded content. Currently, we process all content serially. In other words, if 20 files are waiting to be processed, all 20 files must be processed before a single one gets posted to the internet. Early next week, we will have a new process in place that will process files in parallel. Smaller files will be processed very quickly without having to wait behind large files that take a long time to process.

With these changes, if we experience the same system failure, we will be back online again within minutes, with ALL content restored.